Virginia ELDS Birth Five Learning Guidelines

• Young children learn through play. Play, alone or with other children, is the child’s laboratory. Playing provides children with opportunities to imagine, question, investigate, collaborate, negotiate, practice, and discover. Playing is how young children learn. Caregivers and educators observe and guide children in play to ensure that children continue to expand their learning as they play. • Technology and digital experience can have a place in early learning, but should not be the primary medium for learning. Children aged 2 and under should have little or no reliance on digital devices for their entertainment or learning. It is undeniably the case, however, that most young children see and interact with the digital world - even if only through a parent’s cell phone - from a very young age. The imperative for adults who are supporting young children’s experience of digital technology, is to position those media and devices as tools that enable investigation, communication, collaboration, and creativity. ABOUT CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE PRACTICE Establishing expectations for culturally responsive practice among Virginia’s early childhood workforce is critical to supporting the effective delivery of care and instruction to Virginia's diverse early learner population. Culture strongly influences the attitudes, values, and behaviors that young children, caregivers and educators bring to the caregiving and instructional processes, making culturally responsive caregivers and educators necessary for the equitable achievement of today’s increasingly diverse population of children in early childhood learning spaces. Culturally responsive caregivers and educators see the diversity in their classrooms or learning spaces as an asset and use their knowledge on children’s backgrounds to enrich care and education experiences. Caregivers and educators form a thorough understanding of the specific cultures of the children they care for and teach, how that culture affects children’s learning behaviors, and how they can change interactions and instruction to embrace the differences. Culturally Responsive Caregivers and Educators: • See cultural differences as assets; • Validate the inequities impacting children’s lives; • Cultivate relationships beyond the classroom or learning space, anchored in affirmation, mutual respect, and validation; • Believe that ALL children can succeed and communicate high expectations for all children; • Engage in reflection of their beliefs, behaviors, and practices; • Utilize children’s cultures as vehicles for learning; • Challenge racial and cultural stereotypes, prejudices, racism, and other forms of intolerance, injustice, and oppression; • Mediate power imbalances in classrooms and learning spaces based on race, culture, ethnicity, and class; • Communicate in linguistically and culturally responsive ways; and • Collaborate with families and the local community Achieving education equity- that is eliminating the predictability of student outcomes based on race, gender, zip code, ability, socioeconomic status or languages spoken at home- indeed requires that caregivers and educators engage in culturally responsive practice . It also requires that caregivers and educators are culturally competent , exhibit cultural proficiency and are fully cognizant of what culturally relevant pedagogy and culturally relevant/responsive teaching entails (see glossary for specific definitions that have been adopted by the Virginia Department of Education). To learn more about the Virginia Department of Education’s (VDOE) equity commitments (#EdEquityVA) visit the Virginia is For Learners website. There you will find information about Future-Ready Learning, how the VDOE is supporting early learning, and learn about #EdEquityVA initiatives.

8

VIRGINIA BOARD OF EDUCATION | doe.virginia.gov